


Growing Pains

by Westerosi_Zephyr



Series: Future of the North [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Children, Daddy Sandor, Death in Childbirth (minor character), F/M, Future Fic, Instances of Prejudice, Pregnant Sex, Queen Sansa, Schmoop, sansan, wolf pups
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-08 13:28:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4306842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Westerosi_Zephyr/pseuds/Westerosi_Zephyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Winterfell restored and the North at peace, Sansa and Sandor start their family. Sandor confronts long-held fears, and Sansa adjusts to life as a mother and a queen. Domestic future fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter contains my first attempt at writing smut...oh gods. As always, your feedback is welcome.

**Sandor**

_“…but I am very glad to hear from you, dear, even if it seems every one of your letters includes a request for some favor. I won’t let my feelings be hurt, for I know between running Winterfell and keeping that hulking husband of yours in line you’ve hardly time to think of anything else. And you’re soon to have yet another demand on your time, you say. One that, I assure you, you will find far more taxing than even ruling the whole North. You must write to me every week until then, for I know after your time comes I won’t hear from you again for half a year at least._

_“But I won’t stoop to being jealous of a babe… As it happens, for some time I’ve had half a mind to come North myself if I can only convince Terrance that a few months apart from me won’t kill him. Perhaps the time to do so is near. Believe me, once the babe is a few months old you’ll be dying to have a talk with someone who doesn’t cry at you or demand you settle some obscure dispute or other such nonsense. Your Randa will help with that. We will throw your husband out and I’ll collect my pillow tax just as in the old days. Be warned: in exchange for the gift of my company I intend to find out exactly what compelled you to marry that old brute, and you’ll find your evasions much less effective in person than in letters. (I do have a guess which involves Clegane’s famous size; I leave it to you either to allow me to go on in this belief or to tell me the real reason.)_

_“Write to me as soon as you can to assure me of my warm welcome in the cold North. Sending you the greatest affection, Randa.”_

Sansa folded the letter and set it aside, her eyes full of mirth. “What do you think, my ‘hulking husband'?"

Sandor grimaced. He had never met Sansa’s friend Myranda, and couldn’t say he relished the idea of doing so. He knew of Sansa’s love for her, knew she had been a great ally when his little wife was just a girl posing as a bastard in the Vale, but from all he’d heard of her the woman was a deal too bawdy, more like a tavern wench than a great lady. Not that he would ever say a word against her to Sansa. He considered his words, running his fingers through the long auburn hair she wore loose for bed. “Manderly will be pleased if she manages to talk some sense into Lord Sunderland. Might even go a few weeks before writing to you with some new complaint.”

Sansa swatted his arm lightly. “Yes, of course… I meant the _rest_ of the letter,” she said. “I know you don’t exactly approve of Randa, but… it would be good to see her again.”

“Can’t say I look forward to being kicked out of my own bedchamber,” he grumbled.

She laughed. “Only for a night. I have little coin for paying Randa’s pillow tax. I’m afraid I’m not nearly scandalous enough for her taste.” She blew out the candle she’d been reading by and twisted in his lap to face him.

“Do what you will, little bird.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her hand traveling to the back of his neck, pulling him lower so she could reach his lips.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, feeling the gentle swell of her growing belly as he held her more securely to him. Already beginning to respond, he ran his other hand down her back. Sansa sighed, breaking the kiss and leaning her forehead against his shoulder, allowing him to hold her.

“Which do you want?” she asked suddenly.

“What’s that?”

“The babe. A boy or a girl?”

“Girl,” he said instantly.

She pulled back to peer at him. “Really? Most men want sons first.”

He said nothing.

“A daughter,” Sansa mused. “I’d like that, too. A lady is supposed to give her husband many strong sons, but… Of course I’m sure we’ll have both, eventually,” she smiled sweetly. “Daughters and sons, as brave and strong and gentle as you…”

Sandor wanted no more of this talk. As Sansa’s belly swelled with his child he often felt sure he was lost in a dream, all of this too good to be happening to him in truth. He sometimes woke in a cold sweat, sure he would open his eyes and find himself alone again by the banks of the Trident, or lying on his pallet on the Quiet Isle, cold and empty. But those fears were easy to defeat for the most part, a simple matter of reaching out until he touched her elbow or the small of her back where she slept beside him. Real, after all. The other fears weren’t so easy to forget. Dreaming or waking, they gnawed at him.

“You’ve already given me more than any man has a right to expect,” he growled into her hair, pulling her closer.

She shivered.

“Are you cold, little bird?” She was dressed for bed in a light shift. Their bedchamber, heated by the hot spring water that coursed through Winterfell’s walls, felt warm enough to him, but who was to say something about the babe hadn’t made her more sensitive to chill? “I’ll have Alla build a fire—”

Sansa stopped his words with her mouth. “I’m fine, Sandor. Let’s not call Alla.”

Sandor moved from her mouth to where her pulse beat in her neck, sucking and running his tongue over it as Sansa sighed and ran her fingers through his hair. Returning to his mouth, she drew him in and for a long while there was only the feeling of her soft lips yielding to his, her heart like the beating like a bird’s wings against his chest.

Sansa’s hands left his hair to pull at the laces of his tunic. He shrugged it off and she leaned back to look at him in the light streaming through the window. Lips parted delicately, she seared him with the heat of her eyes. He looked greedily at her in turn. Her profile was illuminated in a shimmery silver haze, like the Maiden come down on a moonbeam.

Then her hands were on him again, tracing his hard muscles, moving lower, deftly untying the laces of his breeches. His cock jumped when she brushed it through the fabric, begging to be released.

“Fierce little bird,” he rumbled. “You’ll have me bare before I’ve as much as touched those pretty teats of yours.”

She stroked his bulge more firmly, the grin on her face strangely feral.

“Little bird,” he moaned.

“You forget, my lord,” she said. “I am a wolf. I mean to have my way with you tonight.”

His breathing hitched. “That so?” he managed. Sansa squealed as he scooped her up and carried her to the bed. But her surprise turned back into one of wolfish mischief as he laid her down, careful as if she and the babe inside her were made of Myrish glass. She bounded to her knees and nipped his lower lip, sensing her victory. _You’re right, little bird. I can’t withstand you. Never could._

She pulled him down onto the bed beside her, where she made quick work of his unlaced breeches and smallclothes. He was left naked and yearning before her hungry gaze, while Sansa was still covered in the bedgown that only hinted at her shape. He half thought to tear it off, to expose the fullness of her heavy teats and the eager wetness of her mound, but he instead held himself still, waiting for her next move. He would let Sansa play her game, and win at it too. _Let her!_ He almost laughed aloud at the thought. As if he would choose any different, really. As if he wasn’t clay in her hands, to do as she pleased with, and as if that thought didn’t excite him further.

She locked her eyes with his, never breaking his gaze as she lowered her head, slow and deliberate, and enveloped him in her hot mouth.

“Gods, Sansa,” he hissed. She teased him, sliding her tongue over the head of his cock but going no further, never taking him all the way. She retreated and returned only to continue her maddening game.

He pumped his hips in frustration and she drew away, raising an eyebrow. She was enjoying this, having him at her mercy. Even with his cock in her mouth she was laughing at him.

He couldn’t take any more. Sandor seized the hem of her shift and jerked it up. Next thing he knew she had shrugged it the rest of the way off and at last she was naked as he.

“Gods, Sansa,” he said again. He would never get his fill of her body. Every time it seemed he needed to relearn the contours of her hips, her teats, her belly growing big with his child. Every time he felt the same desperate wish to hold her to him and never let go, certain this time would be their last, that after this she or _someone_ had to realize dreams like this had no right to pose as reality.

But she was leaning into him, kissing him again, and in no dream had he ever tasted himself on her lips like this, or heard the way her breath caught when he slid his hand up her thigh to feel the wetness between her legs. She filled his senses: the press of her belly and breasts against him, the smell of lavender in her hair, the musk of her cunt. Real.

Sansa moaned into his mouth as he stroked her entrance, his slick fingers gliding over her sensitive nub. Stilling his hand, she straddled his throbbing cock and slid over him, slow, enveloping him in her tight cunt. He licked and sucked her hard nipples, letting her set the pace. She rocked against him, slowly at first before picking up speed. “Yes. Sandor,” she keened amid the soft wet sounds of their coupling. She arched her back and Sandor added short thrusts of his own as he felt his release nearing. He wanted more, to throw her down and take her thoroughly as he was wont to do before, but he held back even as his fervor mounted. He would be gentle, wouldn’t risk hurting her or the babe.

Sansa let out a long moan and dug her nails into the muscles of his shoulders. Breathing labored as he fought to hold off his release, he reached between their bodies to grind his fingers against her nub.

“Sandor. Look at me,” she panted.

He met her eyes in time to see them go unfocused as she peaked. Her walls clamped around him and then she was holding his face between her small palms, running her fingers over his whole cheek and his ruined one both and kissing him ferociously.

“Sansa,” he said again and again as he spilled himself inside her, filling her cunt with his seed. Their movements stilled as the familiar sensation of being at once empty and complete came over him. He held her close, listening to her breathing slow.

She traced the line of his burned jaw, tucked a strand of hair behind his good ear, smiling and settling against him. After a time her eyes drifted shut. Sandor shifted them to their sides and pulled a quilt up to cover their nakedness.

“Comfortable?” he checked.

Sansa nodded.

Sometime in the night she woke him, drawing his hand to rest flat over her belly. “Do you feel it?”

The skin under his calloused fingers was smooth, taut. Sansa had propped herself up on an elbow to watch his face. Something fluttered from inside her. He swallowed hard. Sansa laid her hand next to his as the next flutter came, and they stayed like that far into the night, feeling the movements together in silence.

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Sandor cursed his bloody useless leg for slowing him. He needed air, needed movement and exercise to clear his head. Winterfell’s halls were too warm. They pressed in on him, made his head ache and his heart pound like he was about to face battle.

He seized the first squire he found in the yard and ordered the boy to fetch a practice sword. The boy, frightened by whatever he saw in Sandor’s face, returned with the sword moments later, and Sandor looked for someone to spar. He needed someone reasonably skilled, someone it would take focus to beat. He’d regained much of his old skill after his injury and his time with the holy brothers, enough to impress most who’d never seen him fight before, but he knew he’d never match his old skill. _Not with this buggering leg._

He called to a young man-at-arms he’d marked earlier for good technique, Willard. The two paired off, measuring one another with their eyes before closing the gap between them.

Sandor turned Willard’s first blow easily. He might no longer have the Hound’s speed and agility, but he could still anticipate a coming swing. Willard struck again and Sandor blocked again. The younger man was well built but did not approach Sandor’s size. He would tire long before Sandor did, and Sandor would wait and let him before attacking in earnest. He made a note to single Willard out for further training; he was a smart and careful fighter, and with more practice might make a noteworthy swordsman, the kind he’d feel easy to know was guarding Sansa. And he was still a boy, or near enough as made no matter, maybe still shy of his sixteenth nameday. He had promise.

_“…And I thought it quite a clever judgment, truly. You could see that even the old woman was satisfied. She asked if she could kiss my hand, and of course I allowed her. I felt the strangest sensation when I looked into her eyes, Sandor, almost as if she were seeing into my soul, silly as that sounds. And she said, ‘You will have a son, y'Grace.’ That was all. And yet I felt a shiver go down my spine, and I more than half believed her at that moment.” Sansa laughed, glancing at him over her shoulder as she loosed her hair from its braid._

_Sandor frowned. “She hoped to earn more of your favor, telling you it’s a boy. Any village midwife or woods witch you asked would say the same. It’s always sons with them.”_

_“I understand,” she said. “Still, it was strange…”_

_“Even maesters can’t know for certain until the babe’s born,” Sandor pressed with more vehemence than the subject called for. “At least they don’t lie about it. Buggering midwives… wrong five times out of ten, but that doesn’t stop them telling the same to every woman they see.”_

_“I know, Sandor,” Sansa said quietly, the amusement gone from her voice. She looked serious, her little arms wrapped protectively around her round belly. Sandor moved to hold her, already regretting his words. Sansa’s time was near, and though she tried to hide it she was tired and growing anxious. She’d only wanted to laugh with him about some foolish old woman, and instead he’d snapped at her like a beast._

_He kissed the top of her head, stroked her hair, and she settled into his arms, apparently willing to forget his meanness. For him it was not so easy. The restlessness remained, the constriction that had gripped his chest at her words. It kept him awake most of the night, interrupted only by brief troubled dreams._

The blunted sword hit his arm with enough force to make him stumble back. He swore as much from surprise as from the pain. _Bloody fool,_ he thought, to let his mind wander like that during a fight.

Willard pressed the advantage his inattention had wrought, but Sandor forced himself to focus on the match at hand and recovered enough to prevent any more blows from landing. When the boy had exhausted himself Sandor put an end to their bout.

“You did well,” he told the boy distractedly, his thoughts already returning to the same worn and intolerable worries that had plagued him for weeks.

He exchanged his training garb for dress more suited to his position as Sansa’s husband, resolved to visit the maester. He found the young man where he expected to, stooped over an old book in his chambers below the rookery.

“My lord!” Maester Sam said, hurriedly shutting the book and bowing. The metal links around his fat neck clinked. “H-how may I be of service?”

Sandor hadn’t seen much of the young maester in the few months since he’d been sent to them by the Citadel, not spending much of his time in Winterfell’s library, but from what he had seen the maester was always nervous and quivering. He clearly enjoyed books and food, and that he had earned his chain in a matter of a few years suggested he possessed a measure of intelligence, but he looked to Sandor like the sight of blood would unman him. He doubted the maester had ever done more than read in his books how to treat wounds and birth babes.

Sam watched him with apprehension. He gave his age as one-and-twenty, but Sandor couldn’t help but think of him as a boy. “I have a letter to send to Castle Cerwyn.”

“Oh, yes, my lord.” The maester took the letter he held out, the look of fear on his face growing when Sandor made no move to leave. “R-right away, my lord,” he said, scurrying toward the stairs to the rookery.

“The letter can wait a moment,” Sandor said. The boy swallowed, turned back to him. “What do you know about childbed?”

“My lord?” the maester asked stupidly.

“What were you taught? About birthing babes?”

Sam seemed to relax. He offered a sympathetic smile. “You’re worried about the Queen.”

“I’ll decide if I’m worried or not after you answer me.”

That made him serious again. “It’s one of the first things we learn to earn our silver link, aside from treating minor wounds and sicknesses. Almost all maesters are sure to oversee many births while they serve, so of course the lessons are given great importance. Um,” he broke off nervously.

“What do they teach you, then?” Sandor knew his brusque manner would not help the boy to find his tongue, but it was all he could do not to shake the craven maester and command him to come out with it. His sleepless night, and all those before it, had left him with less patience than usual for such dithering.

“All—all manner of things. How a pregnancy progresses normally, and…and troubling signs to watch out for, and how to help bring on contractions. What to do when…if problems arise while a lady labors. What to do if the babe is born sickly…”

“And if the mother takes sick after, or the bleeding won’t stop—?”

“Oh, yes,” the maester rushed to assure him. “Of course, that as well. But…my lord, there’s no reason to worry. Your lady is young, and healthy, and she’s had no complications…”

“And how many babes have you helped birth? An expert, are you?”

“All students are required to observe a birth to earn their silver link, my lord. And she will have a midwife in attendance as well—”

“Thank you, Maester,” Sandor said, making an effort to be civil for Sansa’s sake. She was always telling him he needed to watch his tongue, that it wasn’t befitting of her consort to be so crude. But he had heard enough. “See that you send that letter.”

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *

“Sandor, why would you do such a thing?” Sansa demanded some days later, openly piqued. She had been nothing but gracious to their guests, but alone in their rooms she showed him her displeasure. “Why would you summon another maester from Castle Cerwyn? How… _rude_ it must seem to Maester Sam!”

“He’s never helped birth a babe in his life,” Sandor said, unable to keep the edge from his voice.

“He was trained at the Citadel, same as Maester Collen! He knows enough to help if needed.”

“He looks like a loud sneeze would make him soil himself.”

“You haven’t gotten to know him as I have. He’s steadier than he seems. Besides, the midwife is the one who’ll do most everything. Hanna has delivered hundreds of babes. Women give birth every day, Sandor.”

His head pounded.

_The room was dim, whether from lack of light or the fading of memory he wasn’t sure. A fire burned in the hearth. Noises he hardly understood drifted to him from the adjoining bedchamber. A feeble cry. Hushed but venomous voices._

_“…not stopping. See how it’s already soaked the sheet!”_

_“Do you take me for Tywin Lannister, woman?”_

_A different sort of crying, lower, like someone was trying to be quiet. A hissed response he couldn’t make out._

_He clutched the doll tighter. Gregor would have knocked it from his hands, would’ve said dolls were for babies and stupid girls, but Gregor wasn’t there. He was somewhere else… He’d run, that was it, run from the Keep when the moaning and the cries had started. Somehow Sandor knew he would stay away for a long time, until he was sure the noise had stopped. So it was safe to hold the doll._

_“…fuck will a maester do?” His father’s voice had risen sharply. Another muffled reply. “Give her more of the herbs, then! Don’t mean a rat’s arse to me. …I’ve told you, no!” A sharp crack resounded through the door. “I’m not paying any maester. I’m no Lannister, I don’t shit gold.”_

_Without warning the door was thrown open and Sandor had to scramble out of his father’s way as the big man thundered out. Then things were quieter, just a low murmur and a weak cry to disturb the silence._

_Sandor gathered his courage and went into the room that had been closed to him for so long. It smelled inside, like a hot forge, like his father’s armor, but stronger. The old woman crouched by the bedside, holding her cheek and watching him, but his mother made an effort to smile. “Come see your sister, Sandor,” she breathed._

_He crept closer but did not touch her or the little baby in her arms. She was scaring him, her eyes all bruised and hollow-looking… He was crying, and then so was she. He wanted her to get up and be his mother and stop scaring him, but she wouldn’t. No matter what, she wouldn’t._

Sansa was watching him with concern, clutching his hand. _As if_ I’m _the one to be worried over._

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t tell her, not yet. It was no tale for a woman so near her time. He cleared his throat. “Please, Sansa. Just let the maester stay this time, to help in case the boy loses his wits.” Her expression softened. _She has to agree._ “I love you, little bird. Sansa,” he rasped.

“Not so little anymore,” she jested lightly. Her anxious expression belied her tone. “All right. Since he is already here… Thank the gods Sam isn’t easily offended.”

“Seven hells take his offense,” Sandor said.

Sansa sighed in exasperation. “And I love you, Sandor. Gods help me.”

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Sansa’s thin fingers clutched his hand. Her touch anchored him as much as his seemed to soothe her. He ignored the voices, everything but her hand in his and her face twisted in pain one moment and slack in exhaustion the next.

Sandor wished he could feel her pain. To relieve her, yes, but also to give him a real part in this, to give him some use besides taking up space and murmuring meaningless encouragements. He was separate but for her little hand. The old woman’s sure commands weren’t for him, nor the bustling of the midwife’s assistant or the faintly bored comments of the two maesters who stood some way off, as yet unneeded.

This was likely why the old woman had first narrowed her eyes and told him most men preferred waiting outside until sent for with news of a son or daughter—this bloody itch of helplessness. But Sandor had stared her down, said he would stay unless the little bird herself told him to leave. And she hadn’t. She’d smiled at him as he dragged the chair to the side of the bed.

She’d chatted a bit at first, between the waves that wracked her body. She’d said how glad she was, and, “Oh Sandor, soon—!”

He’d been watching young Rickon train in the yard when the message came. He’d left the boy to the captain of guards when the messenger approached to say that the Queen Regent had taken to her chambers. He all but ran from the yard, kept in check only by his stiff leg, to be with Sansa.

But that was hours ago. He’d lost track of exactly how long. Long enough that the sun had set and the old woman had lit a great roaring fire to see by, enough to set them all to sweating even with the window thrown open. Now Sansa seemed hardly to have time to catch her breath after the last wave before the next was on her, but as far as Sandor could tell nothing had changed except that her pretty words had dried up and it had fallen to him to keep up the stream of chatter and to hold her hand as much for his sake as for hers.

Sandor fixed his eyes on her face. She was flushed, her hair mussed, her brow beaded with sweat. How much longer would this go on? How much more would her gods see fit to make her suffer? _Don’t leave me, little bird,_ he pleaded silently, the helplessness becoming too much to bear.

There was a change in the old woman’s tone, a sudden rush of motion in the room. He blocked it out. Sansa’s eyes met his just as she issued a terrible cry. She squeezed his hand with more strength than he knew she had, her body arching off the bed for an instant before falling prone against the pillows.

A high-pitched wail rent the air. Sansa’s smile then was the loveliest he’d ever seen, all the pain that her gaze had held moments ago turned to something like triumph.

“What’s… Is she…?”

The old midwife was ordering Sam around, doing something he couldn’t see down by the end of the bed.

“A perfectly normal birth, my lord,” said jowly Maester Collen. “Of course, we will keep watch on mother and child for a time, to be certain.”

“The babe?” Sansa spoke up for the first time in hours, hoarse but clear.

“A girl, Your Grace,” the old woman said in a tone of regret. “But healthy.”

Sansa beamed, and a queer lightness overtook Sandor. Sansa had propped herself against the pillows and was watching avidly as the woman handled a small whimpering bundle of cloth.

“I’ll not doubt any longer when it’s said childbed is a woman’s war,” Sandor said, his voice coming out as hoarse as Sansa’s.

She gave a small laugh at that and raised his hand to her cheek. “Cersei told me a woman’s life is nine parts mess to one part magic,” she said. “About that much she was right. But how the magic makes up for all the rest!”

“Your Grace.” Sam had come between them, holding a soft bundle. Sansa reached for the mewling thing and held it close. “What will you name her?”

“We decided on Catelyn, for my mother,” Sansa said. She fiddled with the swaddling and at last Sandor could see the soft, pink little face. Long dark eyelashes fluttered open and Sansa’s blue eyes peeped at him blearily.

Something in him shattered, it felt like, though no pain came with it. Only an unbearably sweet fullness in his chest and eyes, some force too strong for him threatening to break free. _A daughter._ Catelyn. _His_ daughter, and Sansa’s. Impossible that this was no dream. Impossible that what he felt for Sansa could transfer so quick to this fragile little creature, multiplied rather than split.

“She has your chin, I think.” Sansa traced a light finger over the babe’s jaw.

Sandor gaped at that, at a loss to see how Sansa could connect his ugly face to any part of this perfect being. He peered at the tiny girl-child with apprehension until he’d satisfied himself against the notion. Sansa might believe what she would, but he was reassured: Catelyn looked like a babe and nothing more, her little features all softly indistinguishable from any other newborn child’s. All but her eyes.

“Will you hold her?”

Sandor opened his arms clumsily, unsure how to go about this. Sam helped Sansa pass Cat to him and the old midwife showed him the right way to hold her.

He’d never felt more like a brute. She was the most delicate thing he’d ever held, so tiny and innocent. He feared even to breathe, at first. Growing a bit braver, he rocked her gently and held her closer as she quieted her little whimpers. She weighed nothing at all.

When she began to fuss again he returned her to Sansa, his arms left strangely empty. He leaned back in his chair as Hanna showed Sansa how to help the babe take the breast.

At length the maesters and the midwife left them alone, taking away armfuls of dirtied bedding. “I’ll return in an hour to see how you fare,” Sam said. “Send word if you need someone before then.”

For once Sansa paid him no more mind than Sandor did. She looked like to fall asleep at any moment, she and Catelyn. He reached for the babe as her heavy lids shut, meaning only to feel her soft skin once more, to convince himself finally that all of this was real. Her tiny hand grasped his finger reflexively.

“That’s right, little Cat,” he said, quietly as he could so as not to wake Sansa. “I’m here. I’ll not go anywhere.”


	2. Mothers and Daughters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months after her daughter Catelyn's birth, Sansa entertains guests at Winterfell and adjusts to life as a mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More angst ahead, oh dear. This chapter was supposed to be short and sweet. Then it turned into this. I dunno, guys. Let me know what you think?

**Sansa**

 

“I’m sorry I was away,” Arya said. The girl— _No, she is a woman grown now,_ Sansa reminded herself—sat in the nursery’s window seat, dressed in her riding clothes, loose men’s breeches and a leather vest worn over a woolen tunic so begrimed it could not be said to be any particular color. She rocked Catelyn gently in her arms.

“Are you going to stay this time?” Sansa didn’t mean to sound so accusing, but it was too late to stop the words.

“Sansa—”

“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. She hated to see the forlorn way Arya had looked at her, her silent plea for understanding, not judgment. This was no fit welcome for her sister. “It’s probably best you weren’t here for the birth. I had a quick labor, really, but still Sandor was almost beside himself. You’d have been no better,” she teased.

Arya gave her a small smile and cooed at the baby. Catelyn watched her seriously with wide blue eyes. It amazed Sansa how much Cat had grown in so short a time.

“I’m not much help when there’s nothing to fight against,” Arya admitted. She raised her head. “That’s why I have to go away sometimes, Sansa. I want to stay and be with you and Rickon, and Cat now too,” she added, “but… I can’t, sometimes. All my prayers were answered,”—Sansa gave an involuntary shudder, remembering what Arya had told her about her prayers—“but none of it made any difference. Mother and Father are still gone, and Robb, and Jon, and Bran—”

“Bran still lives,” Sansa broke in. “You know that.”

“He’s not here. Don’t you see? Winterfell… it’s all I ever wanted and thought about for years, but being back now… It’s wonderful. And it’s awful.”

Sansa took Cat from her sister, laid her down in the crib. Then she sat beside Arya and embraced her. _I understand_ , she wanted to say, _I do_. Arya leaned against her, her dark hair falling over Sansa’s shoulder.

“I know it’s not the same—”

“It won’t ever be the same!” Arya pulled away. “You can name your children after our parents all you like, but I’ll never have my mother again.”

“That was unkind,” Sansa said quietly.

“I’m sorry, Sansa.” She truly did look it. Sansa’s heart ached for her.

“No, it won’t ever be the same. But we can go forward, rebuild a life here. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“With Clegane,” Arya said dryly.

Sansa let her have that. “So you will leave again? There’s nothing I can say? You know how it upsets Rickon when you go.”

Arya hung her head. “I know. Probably. Eventually, yes.”

“I know there’s no point to telling you it’s dangerous to wander about alone. You’ve ways to protect yourself, I know, and you have Nymeria. But nevertheless, it’s—”

“—not proper,” Arya finished for her. “Neither is wedding your sworn shield.”

“What is so improper about a wedding before the eyes of the gods?” Sansa asked archly.

Arya snorted. “The husband, that’s what. Sometimes I think I’ll never understand you, Sansa. You call me improper, and then you go and marry _him_.”

“Really, first I married him, and _then_ , many months later, I called you improper.”

Arya made a show of rolling her eyes. “You’ve been calling me improper all my life.”

“Because all your life you’ve been improper,” Sansa countered, grinning. She was glad to see her sister’s mood lifting.

Arya stuck out her tongue. _As if to prove my point. She’s a woman grown, but she’ll never act a true lady._ In truth, she had long since given up fighting her sister on that point. Rickon’s regent she might be, with power to command the whole North, but her authority fell short when it came to Arya. She had resigned herself to her sister’s unseemly behavior. She would rather put up with her comings and goings and occasional crude remarks than lose her again. And really, it was not so bad. People might talk, but Arya gave them no substance for their gossip besides the obvious, her unusual manner of dress and her solitary travels about the land. She was as willful as ever, but she was not the same little girl she had been in King’s Landing.

“At least I, unlike you, have no plans to marry the first man who happens to scowl at me just right,” Arya was saying pertly. “You may think you’d like to see me safely and _properly_ wed, but then I’d have to go live with my lord husband and I’d hardly ever come back to visit. Rickon would hate that.”

“No more than you would,” Sansa smiled, imagining Arya wed to one of her bannermen.

Seeing Cat was still awake, she left Arya’s side and lifted the child from her crib. Cat gurgled at her and waved a fist. Sansa visited her every morning and night, could not get enough of her. She loved the softness of her skin, her sweet milky smell, the dark hair that had begun sprouting from her scalp. Every morning before she broke her fast she had to come here to marvel at how much bigger she seemed to have grown overnight. _At this rate she will surpass Sandor_ , she thought with amusement, though Cat still fit easily within her arms. She placed a fingertip lightly over the little cleft in her chin, another of Sandor’s contributions.

She realized Arya had said something. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” she said, abashed at her own rudeness.

Arya laughed loudly enough to make Cat turn her head and screw up her face. Arya clapped a hand to her mouth as Sansa murmured and rocked Cat to soothe her. “Oops, sorry,” she said, but the babe had not truly worked herself into a crying fit and was soon settled, looking up at Sansa’s face as though to memorize every bit of it. “I was only saying you were right about that, but it’s obvious you’ve other things on your mind. What are you thinking about?”

“About Cat growing up,” Sansa said. “And, well, I suppose I was also thinking about when we were little. I was too young to remember you at Cat’s age, but I remember Bran and Rickon… Do you remember how you and Bran used to hide behind the walls and jump out at people passing by? It’s a wonder you didn’t scare half the servants to death.” She fell silent, lingering over the memory. “How did Mother ever manage with five of us?”

Arya didn’t correct her. They both knew their lady mother had taken no part in raising Jon.

“Mother was a great lady. Just like you, Sansa. You’ll manage fine, you always have. You’ve always been a natural at everything, singing and sewing and music and all the things ladies are supposed to be good at.” There was no bitterness in Arya’s tone, only a faint wistfulness.

“Thank you, Arya. I do wish I could speak to her. Ask her advice, about so many things. And show her her granddaughter.”

“You’re the mother in Winterfell now. I guess you’ll figure it out,” Arya said awkwardly.

“She always loved you, you know.”

Arya stood abruptly, and Sansa worried she had upset her again, but she only said, “I came straight to the nursery when they said you were here. I haven’t even bathed yet. And I’d wager I’m keeping you from your duties.”

Sansa sighed. It was true, she’d spent much longer with Catelyn this morning than she usually did. Breakfast would be cold, and she would have to hurry if she were not to keep Maester Sam waiting upon her visit, but she was loathe to give up her excuse for lingering.

“You’ll want to break your fast first, surely. Go down to the kitchens, and I’ll tell a servant to ready a bath in your usual rooms.”

Arya nodded and turned on her heel.

The day held much to look forward to, Sansa told herself. She would find time to talk further with Arya, to find out where she had been and what she had done during her latest wandering. She would meet with the cook to plan the welcome feast for her lords, as well; it had been long since she had held a proper council, and since Myranda would soon be arriving she had decided to invite her other bannermen to Winterfell and make it an occasion. She would see to the readying of all the rooms where they would stay, and in the evening she would again visit Cat and stay with her longer, as she always did. The evening was not so far away. Still she wished for a bit more time. She stayed a few more minutes in the nursery, listening to Cat’s even breathing as the girl gave in to sleep and watching the light outside turn golden and brilliant.

But such moments could not last forever, not for the Lady of Winterfell, Queen Regent in the North. She called for the wet nurse, smoothed her skirts and straightened her back, and began her day.

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The feast was grand, all the bounty of spring on display. There had been a flurry of snow earlier in the day, but the Great Hall was warm and noisy with boisterous shouts and laughter. The cooks had performed admirably. They had trout drenched in butter and lemon, roast duck, mounds of wilted ramps, a creamy mushroom soup, a salad of fiddlehead ferns, crusty loaves of bread, bowls upon bowls of fresh fruit, fine wine in abundance, and for dessert there was a confection of ripe red strawberries layered with sweet cream upon delicate slivers of cake. The lords sitting closest to her on the dais complemented her table profusely.

Sansa limited herself to a mouthful or two of each, filling her plate but once and watering her wine. She had asked the head cook specifically not to make any lemon cakes. They were her great weakness, she could never stop at just one.

Between bites she entertained her guests, smiling at their japes and asking after their families and their lands. Myranda was seated in a place of honor on the dais, but she was too far away to speak with without shouting. Arya was there too, and Sansa was glad to see she had even dressed appropriately, wearing a dark blue gown with a neckline that exposed the tops of her shoulders quite prettily. To her left, Sandor mopped his plate with a hunk of bread and watched the scene with his eyes that missed nothing.

When most of the guests had eaten their fill they had dancing, and a singer came out to join the musicians. Lord Glover roared a request for Sansa to give them a song, and she graciously agreed, plucking the high harp a servant had rushed to bring her and singing a joyful little tale of the coming of spring.

“You have a lovely voice, Your Grace,” said Lady Alys Thenn when she had finished, and Lord Glover pounded the table in approval. A warm glow suffused Sansa’s cheeks, but she turned down a request for another song, laughing that she wished to listen to the music as well.

The musicians took up again, and Sansa was soon dancing with one lord after the next. Myranda laughed uproariously as Lord Flint swung her across the floor, and even Arya had been coaxed to dance by a burly young guardsman. All the while Sansa danced with her succession of partners she felt Sandor’s eyes on her. He was still sitting at the table, almost alone now that most there had taken to the floor. It would have been so lovely, a perfect end to the feast and the festivities, if he would only ask her for a dance, but Sansa knew better. Sandor never danced. _And even if he did, now…_ Sansa bit her lip, wishing to chase the unpleasant thought away.

Just then the musicians began a new song. Sansa stiffened at the first few notes, recognizing the tune even before the singer joined with the first verse of “The Rose at the Wall.”

“Your Grace, is something wrong?” asked her partner, a short knight who called himself Myles of Redtree, as she twisted in his arms to search the Great Hall for Arya. She spotted her sister at once. A mask seemed to have settled over her face since Sansa had last glanced her way. The young woman ducked away from her guardsman and strode from the hall.

But there was naught to do without making a needless scene. _It is not the singer’s fault,_ she thought. _Likely he thought the song would please us to hear._ It certainly was a nice song, the kind that had thrilled Sansa as a child, full of noble and heroic deeds and with an ending tragic enough to have made her weep even if it weren’t about… _Poor Arya. She always was closer with him._

When the song had ended she thanked Ser Myles and made her way to Randa. The older woman was pouring herself a cup of iced wine, her cheeks quite red. Her eyes sparkled as Sansa approached.

“At last I’m able to talk with you!” She pulled Sansa close as soon as she was within reach and whispered conspiratorially, “You haven’t forgotten the promise I made you, I hope? We might chatter a bit here, but I intend to have a real talk with you before the night is through.”

“That is what I came to tell you,” Sansa said. “I’ll join you after I’ve seen Catelyn, and then you may ply me for secrets as much as you like.”

“And you’ve told your husband to stay away, haven’t you? I must be sure of it. It’s a principle of mine never to share my bed with ugly men.”

“You’ve shared your bed with none but Lord Terrance since you two were wed, according to your letters,” Sansa returned.

“Well, and perhaps I mean to keep up this faithful streak of mine,” Randa smirked. “You see to it that that old dog of yours knows not to come sniffing around for you in the night.”

“He’s a man, not a dog.”

“Men and dogs alike feel compelled to bury their bones. Ha, my dear! You might have borne a child but you still blush like a maid!”

“He has long been resigned to spending this night alone,” Sansa said, looking away from her laughing friend. _And it is not as though this night will be so different for him, really._ She felt a twinge of the shame that was always there these days, just below the surface.

Sandor was already in the nursery when Sansa arrived, bent over the crib to brush a feather-light kiss over her cheek. His gentleness with Cat, his devotion to her, filled Sansa with a sweet ache. She knew he would often visit her in the middle of the day, something her duties rarely allowed, and sit with her until called away.

In a low voice she asked Mae, the wet nurse, how Cat had been today. “Suckled and slept, a good babe,” said Mae. She was a slight woman of about thirty, and under her care Catelyn was growing rapidly. Sansa delighted in tickling the babe’s chubby arms and legs. “Fed a bit more’n usual, another growth spurt probably. But of course it’s all growth spurts at this age.”

Not for the first time was Sansa grateful for Mae’s service. Sansa had nursed Cat herself for the first week, for the maesters said nothing could match the first days of a mother’s milk. At times it had been nice after a fashion, the way Cat would lay her tiny fist against the skin of her chest, the sleepy look on her face after she was done. But the feedings had lasted so long and come so frequently Sansa hardly slept, and she had been so sore all over from the birth. It had been a relief to hand that particular duty over to another woman, though she missed the closeness they had shared. _I am still her mother,_ she told herself. _It is I who carried her inside me and I to whom she will run when she is older, just as I did with Mother._

She joined her husband, laid a palm against his broad back with just a slight hesitation. She, too, bent to kiss the sleepy babe.

“You’re leaving me to an empty bed tonight, then?”

“That’s right,” she said as lightly as she could, repressing the shame that again stirred within her. “Only for one night.” _What does it matter to him if I am in his bed or not?_

He brushed her lips with his. It was a husbandly but not ardent gesture, nothing that would fluster her in front of a servant. For a moment she wanted to lean in to his body, demand more from him, forget her promise to Randa, but he was already pulling away. “Fly away, then, little bird.”

The rooms Sansa had had prepared for Myranda were some of Winterfell’s largest and airiest, reminiscent, she hoped, of her home in the Vale. Myranda was already chattering, bemoaning her long and tedious journey, as a maid helped Sansa change into her shift behind a standing screen.

But once the maid had left them, Randa ceased talking and assessed her. “You do remember, I hope, how this goes?” she said. “You first.”

“We are both women wed now. I’m afraid I haven’t much to tell aside from what belongs between a lady and her husband. What would you have me say?” Sansa had looked forward to this for months, but suddenly she balked at the thought of Randa prying into her private thoughts.

Randa chuckled and patted the bed. Sansa slipped under the blankets beside her. “I would settle first for hearing how it is this dog—excuse me, _man_ —came to be in your bed at all. I freely admit to harboring some curiosities… But truly, Sansa. Any lord in the realm would have wed you. Why Clegane?”

“I chose him.” Randa’s eyebrows rose. “I had been married once and betrothed twice for my claim. I did not wish to be wed for my claim again.”

“You think none of your other suitors had motives more pure? You think your status meant nothing to Clegane and Clegane alone?” Randa asked incredulously.

“No, I don’t mean… There were many good and honorable men who would have asked for my hand, many I might have been happy with and learned to love. If not for Sandor. I don’t expect you to understand, but… I understand him, as he understands me. I think I loved him for a long time before I ever realized…”

“You’re romantic, Sansa, but I wouldn’t have picked you for one who would risk your bannermen’s scorn just for love.”

“It wasn’t as foolhardy as it seems,” Sansa smiled through the dark. “So much has changed, had to change after the Long Night. By the time we announced our intention Sandor had gained the respect of most of the Northern lords… And I suppose marriages that might have caused talk before were no longer so shocking. Lady Alys wed a wildling lord, after all. After that I suppose my marrying Sandor was not so surprising.”

Randa shook her head. “Of all the answers I expected… Dutiful, proper Sansa Stark wedding a landless non-knight for _love_. I must admit I had hoped for a much more exciting story.”

“Who’s to say the story isn’t exciting?” Sansa teased, thinking back to how it had begun… But even as she said the words she felt cold.

“Oh, now you must go on,” Randa was saying. “You haven’t told me anything good yet.”

Sansa could not answer. She strove to restrain the tears that had risen to her eyes unbidden. Would he ever again look at her like he had that first time, when his want, his need, had been so clear to see that she had gasped for breath?

“Why, Sansa...” Randa sounded aghast. “You look ready to weep. What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” Sansa said brightly, too brightly. “Nothing,” she said again, voice steadier. “Why don’t you tell me about Lord Terrance? I’m sure you’ve collected many stories much more interesting than mine.”

“Nonsense.” The older woman propped herself up on an elbow to better search her face. Sansa shrank from her scrutiny, feeling like a small child caught in a lie, feeling exposed and so, so alone in that moment. “See? You _are_ crying. You must speak to me. I’ll never accept that a wolf of Winterfell is crying about _nothing_. There, it’s all right. Shh.” Randa patted her arm awkwardly.

Sansa wiped the tears from her cheeks angrily. “It’s so silly,” she said at last. “Really it’s hardly worth thinking of. I’ve been far too emotional since Cat…”

“Has he hurt you?” Randa’s mouth was set in a hard line.

“No! No, of course not,” Sansa answered, caught off guard by her friend’s ire.

“In any way?” she pressed.

“No. He would never,” Sansa said firmly. “It’s me,” she forced herself to say. Anything was better than having yet another person think Sandor a monster. He had lived with that for far too long. “I… I haven’t been a proper wife to him. Not since Cat.”

Randa’s brow furrowed. Sansa studied the pattern on the quilt, reddening with the shame of her admission, the failure implicit in it.

“By that, do you mean…?”

_Will she really make me say it?_ “We sleep side by side, but we haven’t… I haven’t done my wifely duties by him.”

“Nothing at all? How long has it been?”

Sansa shook her head. “Nearly three months. The maester examined me six weeks after Cat. He told me I was healed, and it would be fine to… but, I… We still…”

Randa actually chuckled. “Childbed is no easy thing. Three months isn’t so unusual. Now, me… Terrance and I hardly waited a month after Harrion, but it was all right. I know myself better than some maester. Nevertheless, I don’t see the problem, unless… Tell me, he hasn’t tried to _make_ you—?”

Again she hurried to say, “No, he would never.” Randa looked unconvinced. “He hasn’t done anything,” she said, and then she couldn’t help it, the awful unladylike sobs simply spilled out of her until she was left red-faced and raw-eyed, sniffing pathetically. “He’s never tried… He hasn’t done _anything_.”

Poor Randa looked lost. “You’re not upset because he _hasn’t_ tried to touch you—?”

“Don’t you see?” she choked bitterly. “He doesn’t want me anymore.” Spoken aloud for the first time, the words twisted like knives in her chest. “I know I couldn’t… for a while… But there are other ways for me to please him. You know. But he’s never tried, he’s done no more than kiss me or hold me a bit at night. He doesn’t want me. I’ve changed too much. He must thing me horrible and unappealing.”

“Do you think he’s found another, then?”

She would never believe it. She knew him, loved him. He was far more honorable in his crude way than most men were with their vows and honeyed words. It brought her another kind of pain to hear all the things Randa, and surely others, believed him capable of doing. “No. I’m certain of it.”

Randa threw herself heavily onto her back and crossed her arms with a huff. “Then what, Sansa? His behavior seems odd, I grant you, and I’d not so quickly rule out a mistress were I you, but if you’re certain… You can’t truly think he doesn’t desire you. He has eyes, and you’re as pretty as ever, still hardly more than a girl. Your breasts are bigger, too. You say he hasn’t touched you since Catelyn was born, but before…?” she trailed off suggestively.

Sansa blushed despite herself, remembering.

“There!” Randa crowed. “You can’t truly mean he tumbled you when you were big as a wheelhouse, but now he won’t go near you. Have _you_ ever tried…?”

Sansa frowned. “Not exactly…” Those first weeks she had been afraid, in truth, afraid that he would want her when she wasn’t yet ready. But the weeks passed and he did no more than nuzzle and seemed quite content to leave it at that… She wanted to take hope, but if Sandor still desired her why did he not show it? She had to believe what his behavior said. “You yourself once told me men often find their wives even more appealing when they are with child.”

“I said they often find their _women_ more appealing, but go on.”

Sansa took a breath. “I’m no longer with child, but neither am I… as I was before. He…” She blushed furiously at what she was about to say. “He used to say I looked like the Maiden.” His blasphemy had shocked her at first, especially as she was so often doing such un-maidenly things with him when he said it. She had scolded him, but that only made him grin and say it again. “I should never have liked it, I know. But it sounded so nice, coming from him.” Her voice turned bitter. “He’ll never say it again. My body is changed so much, and I’ve still all this weight left to lose…”

For a moment she feared her last remark might have offended Randa, with her much heavier frame, but then the older woman broke into a laugh. “You? You’ve filled out a bit, I’ll allow, but,” she made an effort to compose herself, “believe me, no one looking at you would know you’d had a babe not three months past.”

Sansa offered a watery half-smile.

“Now,” said Randa, “far be it from me to order the Queen Regent in the North to fuck her husband, but listen to me. Take a bit of advice from your Randa. Talk to him. Command him to answer for his behavior. Else you’ll go on blaming yourself and soaking my pillow with your tears.”

Sansa breathed deep. Randa’s words had soothed her somewhat, and voicing her fears, giving them a sound and a shape, made them feel a bit easier to manage. She nodded. “Thank you. For listening. I told you it was silly.” She laughed shakily.

Randa laughed too. “Really, I hardly blame you. If Terrance had refused to touch me after Harrion I’d have had a few words for him, but as I’ve told you… Of course, I made him spill his seed outside. Another babe less than a year after the first, could you imagine…?”

Sansa couldn’t help but giggle at the horror in her voice. “Thank you,” she said again. “Since we met you’ve been almost like a mother to me in some ways, do you know?”

Randa turned on her, affronted. “I know you don’t _mean_ to hurt my feelings, but Sansa, really! I’m only a few years your elder!”

Sansa grinned, her friend’s indignation pushing away the last of her self-pity. “I meant the way you’ve given me advice, and sought to protect me when I was in the Vale.”

“I’ll strive to forget you ever said such a thing,” said Randa, a secret smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

They talked on, about other things now, far sillier. Randa made her blush several more times with gossip from the Vale and some choice tales about her lord husband. She even talked more sincerely for a time about her own child, a boy of two years, smiling indulgently as she talked of all the trouble he was already causing.

It had by no means been early when they had begun their talk. By the time their chatter lapsed the candle had long burned out and the night pressed on them with the heaviness of the final hours before dawn.

“All in all, not a bad pillow talk,” Myranda mumbled. Seconds later she had begun to snore.

It felt to Sansa as though she had no sooner shut her eyes than she woke again, years of being accustomed to waking at dawn overcoming her exhaustion. Randa snored on beside her. She likely would not rise until midday, but Sansa was Lady of Winterfell, Queen Regent in the North, and she had guests to see to and duties to discharge.

She summoned the maid, and with the girl’s help she donned a rich green velvet gown, patterned on the sleeves with a motif of a howling direwolf. She dared to feel more hopeful than she had in a long while. She would visit Maester Sam before beginning her day, ask him to make a strong tea to clear the sleep from her head. But first, it was time to check on Cat.

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Sansa clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. She was more nervous now than she had been that very first time. Then at least she had been sure of his feelings.

Sandor lay next to her, one large arm pillowing his head and the other thrown over her waist, the way they usually slept. But she could tell he was not asleep.

_I must at least_ try. _I must know for sure._

She had to be brave. How could he, of all people, possibly love someone too afraid to risk his rejection? Yet all this was easier thought than acted upon, she had found. In the two days since her talk with Randa she had not been able to bring herself to ask him.

_Stop thinking, then. Just do it._

She turned on her side to face her husband. His eyes opened without a moment’s pause. “Little bird? Are you well?”

“Sandor…” she started, but it was no good. The words stuck in her throat. He was watching her, brow creased in concern. That he still cared for her was obvious, but somehow that made her worries worse. _He is trapped with someone who can no longer satisfy him, not in all the ways a wife should._ She still could not bring herself to speak the words. _Don’t ask him, then. Just… try._

Her lips crashed against his before she could rethink herself. He let out a little breath of air, but he kissed her back. A real kiss, she was sure of it.

_But a kiss is still only a kiss._

Again before she could convince herself otherwise, she lifted a hand to his hard chest, traced the outline of the muscles she knew so well. She hoped he wouldn’t notice how her hand shook. She dared to peek at him.

His eyes stared into hers. At her act they had grown wide, questioning, but she thought she saw hunger there as well. The intensity of his gaze made her almost dizzy.

_Was I wrong?_ But if she was, why had he not done something sooner? It was all so confusing. She felt as if the walls that had been closing in around her for a month or more had been suddenly swept away, but with them had gone her footing.

But there could be no mistaking the heaviness of his breathing, or the way he murmured her name like a prayer when he broke their kiss. His eyes seemed to search hers for something. He hesitated, drawing back slightly.

“We don’t have to do this now.”

The air went out of her. “I—if you want to stop…”

“Me? Do you, Sansa?”

“I… no, I want… I want to please you.”

He kissed her again, moving slower this time. Once the knot in her belly had loosened it felt nice. And when he ran his fingers down her bare arm, that felt nice, too. She had missed this, missed him.

Sandor entangled one hand in her hair and kissed her more deeply. He palmed her breast over her shift, and then he was lowering his mouth to suck at her neck, then lower, wetting the fabric as he kissed her nipple through it. It had been so long. She wanted to enjoy it, and she was, a little, but another part of her felt removed from him, too nervous for what was to come to give in to the sensation of his mouth on her for true.

She clutched the collar of his tunic in both fists as he shifted his weight, rolling her onto her back. She closed her eyes. His hand slipped beneath the hem of her shift, inching it up, exposing her, as he traveled up her calf, her thigh. Soon he would have it off her completely, she would be bare but for her smallclothes, he would _see_ her, see how soft she had become, how unappealing—

He pulled back abruptly. “I think another time would be better, little bird.”

Her locked muscles went limp. Had she done something wrong? _He doesn’t want me. But then why make such a pretense?_

“Sansa? What’s wrong? It’s fine, little bird, we’ll wait, it’s fine—”

“It isn’t _fine_ ,” she objected. _He said he would never lie to me._ “You don’t want me any longer.”

“Don’t want you—?” he repeated.

She couldn’t look at him. “I… I understand,” she choked out, mortified. “But why would you—why—”

“Sansa, slow down. Stop. _Look at me._ ” His finger was under her chin, lifting it gently. She stole herself to meet his eyes, to see the disappointment there. His eyes were narrowed, a frown pulling his burned skin tight, but if anything he looked puzzled. “You think I don’t _want_ you?” he asked, as though the idea were nonsense.

“You’ve hardly touched me since Cat,” she whispered. “It’s been months. And I understand, I know I’m changed, but why would you pretend—?”

“Pretend? What about you, were you pretending? Gods, Sansa, if you think I don’t want you then what was that about? Did you want that at all?”

“Of course I did!” It surprised her how his accusation stung her even considering all the rest. “You were the one who stopped!”

“Gods. Seven buggering hells.” Sandor squeezed his eyes shut. “I stopped because you went stiff as a corpse, Sansa, same as you have every time I’ve done more than kiss you gentle. I’ll not force you if you need more time. Gods. You thought _I_ didn’t want _you_?”

“I don’t… You never…” Sansa was lost. “I don’t look like the Maiden anymore. I’m trying, but—”

“The Maiden? You’ve given me a child, why should you look like the bloody Maiden? You look more a woman now than ever, isn’t that enough? Sansa. I want you,” he said, so low her belly clenched, but this time it was not from nerves. She wanted to believe. “Of course I never touched you, you’d just birthed a babe. I couldn’t take what you hadn’t to give.”

“Yes, but… I could have done other things. For you.”

Sandor’s groan shook the bed. “Is that what began this? Because I didn’t beg you to suck my cock?” Sansa flushed. “You’re right, I didn’t. You’re too bloody dutiful, little bird, I knew if I asked you’d put your own wants aside, never say a word. So I waited. Never thought you’d take it to mean I didn’t _want_ you.” He looked pained.

“All this time, you’ve wanted me?”

“Gods, yes. You’re perfect, more than I’ll ever deserve. Always.”

She shivered. “All this time I’ve only wanted to please you. I thought I couldn’t any longer.”

Grey eyes met hers, dark and deep enough to swallow her. “Do you still want to please me?”

“Yes.” Her tummy fluttered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Lie back.”

She hesitated only a moment.

He started at her collar bone, kissing lightly. “I want you.”

She sighed, all the emotions she had so recently let loose untangling within her like a string, letting go their strangling hold.

He caressed her jaw, ran a finger over her lips. With his other hand he worked the laces of her shift, opening it from the collar to her ribs. His hot breath gusted over her skin for a moment before he took a hard nipple into his mouth, rolling the other between his fingers. Lances of pleasure shot through her, gathering low inside. “I want you,” he said.

He trailed kisses between her breasts to the base of her ribcage. She reached for him, wanting to touch him as he was touching her, but he caught her hand. “Not now,” he rasped. “Time for that later.”

His large hands slid down her sides as he moved over her. When he again held the hem of her shift in his hand her nerves returned despite everything. She was still anxious about him seeing her, how she had changed. But she also feared he would stop again, for good this time. She willed herself to relax.

He did pause when he felt her tense, hands resting against her ankles. “Tell me what you want,” he said.

She breathed deeply. “Don’t stop. Please.”

He let out a shuddering breath. His thumbs stroked her skin as he slowly slid the shift up her legs, uncovering more and more of her. He lowered his mouth to trail a burning path up her calf, to her knee, to her thigh. His burns pressed against the opposite thigh as he nipped at her soft flesh, so close. She held her breath, ready for what he would do next, ready to feel him there.

But instead of kissing her where her body called for it most he tugged the shift over her head, leaving her naked but for her smallclothes. She burned. _He sees me, he—_

He pressed his body down over hers, returning to her sensitive breasts, lashing them with his tongue, circling her hard nipples, then again making his way lower. He seized her hips, kneading them with his strong fingers. He kissed her tummy, where she was still so soft after carrying Cat. She would have shrunk from him touching her there, but his hands held her in place. “I _want_ you,” he growled, raining kisses over the place she had been most ashamed of, running his tongue along one of the jagged silver lines that marked her skin.

“Sandor,” she moaned, giving herself over fully to the sensations at last, threading her fingers through his hair. “Please…”

He went lower, pulling at the ties of her smallclothes. He kissed the curls above her mound and she pushed herself up to him as he spread her and ran his tongue along the length of her folds. “I missed your taste, little bird,” he growled low in his throat.

She opened her legs, all reserve gone, and he laved at her, probing her opening before running his tongue over her nub. A jolt went through her. “Please, more,” she panted, fingers tightening in his hair. He sucked at her, grazed her nub with his teeth before stroking it harder. His hands had moved to her bottom, lifting her slightly and holding her against him as he consumed her.

“I want you. Gods, I want you, Sansa. What do you want?” He panted. She writhed each time he lifted his mouth from her, needing to feel him there.

“You. I want you. Please,” she whimpered.

He held her eyes as he eased a finger inside her, his own dark with lust. “Sopping wet,” he said, moving so slowly she could hardly bear it, and when he added a second finger and returned his mouth to her nub the feeling was almost too intense, overpowering her, her entire body clenching as she felt like she was about to fall apart. She moaned, everything rushing together at once, shattering her into perfect bliss, nothing but his hands and his mouth keeping her tethered to the world. She came apart for him, clenching around his fingers, moaning helplessly while he continued to lap at her until she was spent.

When she had ceased her shuddering he stretched himself out beside her, gathering her into his arms. She felt boneless and warm, returning his languorous kiss and tasting herself on his lips.

“Do you still think I don’t want you?”

She laughed weakly, her recent worries already becoming a distant memory. “I should have spoken with you. I’m sorry, Sandor, I know now.”

He jerked his head, a dismissal.

“But what about you?”

He smirked at her, but then shook his head. “Plenty of time for that later. You’ve little enough time left for sleep tonight as it is.”

“And you?” she asked, thrusting her hips against his hardness. “Will you go to sleep like this?”

“You’ll need your rest to entertain these guests on the morrow.”

“Perhaps I’d like better to entertain you now. One more sleepless night will do me no harm.” She kissed his jaw at the same time as her hand found the waist of his smallclothes. “I want you, Sandor.”

He did not protest again.


	3. Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa deals with a conflict as the due date for her second child nears.

**Sansa**

 

_Your Grace, my lord husband has bid me reply to your letter to inform you that he will set out for Winterfell within the week, as you requested. I shall be accompanying him, as will perhaps half a dozen others of our household and a score of men-at-arms. With haste, we shall arrive in a few weeks’ time. Lord Sigorn hopes to arrive before the council begins that he might first discuss the issue more privately with you. He has bid me tell you that he respects your commitment to end the violence, and dreams of a day which may find the free folk wed to the North in truth, the wounds of the land bound that they might continue to heal. Signed, Lady Alys Thenn._

Beneath Lady Alys’ signature was Lord Sigorn’s mark, a crude outline of the flaming bronze disk of House Thenn.

She had been poring over the latest report from Lord Flint, full of more grim tidings, when she heard the messenger’s knock. Sandor had groaned from where he sprawled on the bed, waiting for her, but Sansa had accepted the missive and read it carefully.

“You’re smiling, little bird,” Sandor said now.

“It’s nice to have some small cause to smile. For once, a letter that doesn’t contain more bad news.”

“Good news, then?”

“I hope so,” Sansa said, setting the letter aside. “It was from the Lord and Lady Thenn. It seems Lord Sigorn may have ideas about what should be done. If there’s any way to stop the fighting without further bloodshed and war… In any case, I will have at least one lord on my council who will not urge me immediately to take up arms against the free folk.”

“Do you think the others will listen to an upjumped wildling? Especially where other wildlings are concerned?”

“Lord Sigorn has proven his loyalty and worth to the North many times over. If his suggestions are good even the most stubborn of my bannermen will do him the courtesy of listening. They must.” Sansa rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on.

Sandor noticed. “Plenty of time to fret and make plans tomorrow. It’s late. Come to bed.”

Smoke rose from the extinguished candle in winding rivulets and the bedchamber’s interior turned to shades of blue and black. Outside snow sifted silently to the ground. Sansa slid beneath the blankets to lie beside her husband. Sandor gently pulled her closer, surrounding her with his arms, one hand resting protectively atop her jutting belly.

“Have you given any more thought to what we will call the child, if it’s a girl?” she asked.

“You should sleep,” he said.

“I’d sleep easier knowing our child will have a name.”

His exhaled breath was warm against her neck. “We’ve time to decide yet.”

“Not so long as it seems,” she insisted. “Six weeks, at most. They will pass quickly.”

Sandor sighed heavily. “Have you thought of any more, then?”

“I’d hoped you had,” Sansa said. Would he never say it? They had easily agreed on Eddard, for her father, if the child was a boy, but for a girl…Sansa had considered many names, and for each one she suggested Sandor would nod and say, “Whatever you like, little bird.” Didn’t he realize she wanted him to love the name as well? Still she had tried. She had never known either of her grandmothers, but she liked the name Lyarra well enough, and Bethany, Anya, Lyra, Sybelle, Amelie, Alysanne… Yet none seemed quite right. All but the one… one name had taken root in her heart the very first time she heard him say it, loving the way he made it sound, but she didn’t dare suggest it, not unless he did first. If she mentioned it he might object, and then the possibility would be gone. And the longer he went without suggesting it, the deeper her misgivings grew. Perhaps it was tainted for him, a too-painful reminder. For it must have at least occurred to him, if it had to her.

“I thought your heart was set on Jonquil,” he jested.

“You’re awful,” she said. He knew she no longer had any wish to bring that song to life. “If you can’t be serious maybe I should just pray to the Mother that this babe and all the rest are boys. At least they will have names.”

Sandor rolled away. “Maybe,” he said. His voice sounded tighter than it had been a moment before.

 _He fears having a boy,_ she had realized not long ago. It had surprised her, both that he would fear such a thing and that she had not recognized it sooner. She felt sorry for her jape about having only boys, if it was that which had caused him to withdraw from her, but she felt a little panicky twist in her belly as well. They were bound to have a son eventually. If not this babe, then the one after it, or maybe the one after that. He was such a good father to Cat; would it be different with a boy? The possibility was enough to make her ache for the son they did not yet have, and for Sandor, for she thought she understood where his fear came from and she could think of no way to alleviate it. _He is not his father, nor his brother. Nor will his sons be._ But if he had gone this long believing so, how could she hope to convince him otherwise? Anything she said would likely only distress him.

“Sandor?” she whispered through the dark.

“Yes?” came his rasping voice.

“I… Please, would you rub my back? It’s so sore again, I don’t think I can sleep.” Her voice sounded small to her ears.

“Of course, little bird.” The bedframe creaked softly as he changed his position again. Strong fingers found the center of her back, kneading firmly. “There?”

“A little lower."

She closed her eyes as his hand descended, sighing when he found the tightly knotted muscles in the small of her back and began massaging the ache away. He continued with lighter pressure once she had relaxed under his attentions, and she concentrated on the rhythmic movements, the soothing patterns his hand was tracing. He was right; they had time yet before the babe arrived, and much else to think of between now and then. The heat of his body was beginning to make her feel drowsy at last, her mind emptying of everything but the softness of the mattress and the tenderness of his touch. For the moment she could forget about the concerns that plagued her by day. In their bed she did not have to be a queen. It was enough to be Sansa, to allow herself to be cared for and to feel content.

When she woke the sun was beating down into the bedchamber. Sandor was already gone. The realization made her sit up and take more careful note of the sun’s position. It had to be nearly noon! It was not like her to sleep so late. She rose and called for the maid as she splashed her face with water from the wash basin.

“Why did no one wake me?” she asked the girl who responded to her summons.

“Lord Clegane said not to, Your Grace,” the girl said. “He told me I was to let you sleep till you woke on your own.”

Sansa tried to swallow her annoyance. _Sandor worries I am not getting enough rest, and with good reason. I must have been more exhausted than I realized, to have slept so late. I’m no good either to myself or to the North if I am too tired to think straight._ The steward was quite capable of seeing to Winterfell’s needs on his own for a single morning, and as for the needs of the North, she would see to them right away.

The maid helped her dress in one of the simple gowns that had been let out to accommodate her pregnancy. They would all need to be let out a second time before her time came. Sansa could hardly wait until she was able to choose from among all her nicer gowns again.

Even as she was dreaming about her beautiful lace dress with the blue-slashed bodice she realized she was ravenous.

“Go down to the kitchen and tell the cook to send a large meal to the maester’s study,” she told the maid. “Whatever is already prepared for the midday meal will do, and anything left from breakfast.” The girl curtsied and hurried to do her bidding.

As impatient as she was to find out what news had come while she slept, Sansa first visited the nursery. With disappointment she found it empty, and thought that Mae must have taken Cat on one of their walks about the castle or the grounds. She resigned herself to wait until the evening to see her daughter, and turning around she made her way to the maester’s quarters.

She steadied herself with a hand against the smooth stone wall as she climbed the staircase to the maester’s study. The door on the landing was slightly ajar. When she pushed it open wider she was assailed by a huge black blur.

“Shaggy, no! To me!” Rickon’s voice rang out. The direwolf backed away from Sansa with his tail held high, looking pleased with himself.

Sam leapt from his chair, aghast. “Your Grace, I’m so sorry. Are you hurt? We were just having a lesson—”

“I’m all right,” she said, her racing heart slowing by increments. “Please continue your lesson, Maester. But first, have you any new letters for me?”

“Are you sure? Thank the gods, he might have knocked you down… Yes, sorry Your Grace, we had nearly a score of ravens arrive just this morning. I’ll get the letters for you, a moment…”

Rickon, who had shown a flash of interest upon her arrival, resumed his seat with a groan. “We’re doing figures and heraldry, Sansa. I’ve been at it all morning. Can’t I go to the yard and practice with Sandor?”

Sansa shook her head at her younger brother. Had Robb been this restless and impulsive at eleven? He had not been without a love of fun, but she remembered him as wiser, more measured, even at this age. Then again, maybe he had only seemed so to her. She had been a child, after all, and he her adored older brother. “You’ll need to know figures and heraldry if you’re to be King in the North when you’re a man grown,” she told him. “Yes, and history and reading and writing as well,” she continued after the boy loosed another long groan. “You’ll find there’s more to ruling than swinging a sword and riding into battle. If the gods are good and you rule justly you may never need to take up arms yourself. Now give Maester Sam your attention. I won’t be any distraction.”

Sam shuffled around the table in the center of the room to hand her a great stack of letters, bearing seals from all across the North.

She was halfway through the first, a long-winded letter from Eddara Tallhart that merely confirmed she would attend her council, when there was a knock at the door. “Hold on to Shaggydog,” she said to Rickon, before saying louder, “You may enter.”

Two servants entered, each bearing a tray heaped with food. The cook had not been stingy; there looked to be more food on the trays than half a dozen famished people could hope to eat. As the servants set the trays down she saw pots of honey and preserves and fresh cream, thick slices of ham, soft-boiled eggs, a plate of fluffy biscuits, a bowl of apples and pears. From the midday meal preparations they had been sent a wheel of sharp white cheese, two whole roast chickens, a flagon of cider, and a salad of peppery greens grown in the glass gardens. Rickon snatched a biscuit from the tray even before it had been set down, and Maester Sam regarded the fare appraisingly. Even the babe began to roll and kick within her as if he or she could smell the aromas filling the room.

“Please, take as much as you want,” she said to Sam and Rickon as she filled a plate for herself. “There is enough food here for half the garrison.” Returning to her seat at the small writing table where she had spread the letters, she went on reading between bites, making a pile of those to whom she would need to send replies.

Nearly all the letters were like Lady Tallhart’s and Lord Thenn’s, responses to her summons to the council. Umber, Norrey, Wull, Flint, Glover, Karstark, Manderly, Mormont, and more. Of all the responses, only House Reed sent its regrets. Lord Manderly wrote that his son Wylis would attend in his stead, before going on to exhort her yet again to establish a Northern fleet—based in White Harbor, of course.

Her heart sank when she reached Lord Umber’s missive. In addition to briefly confirming he would come to the council he had sent another report. There had been another attack on his lands, in a village at the edge of the New Gift. The village had been burned, eight houses destroyed, the mill badly damaged. Three had died. Umber wrote that the smallfolk said it had happened after a group of them had killed a wildling who had stolen one of their daughters. Umber’s men had captured and executed those believed to have done the burning, but Sansa still felt sickened. _This is how it is dealt with every time, yet the attacks keep happening._

Once she had read them all she began the task of replying to them. As her quill scratched across the parchment and Maester Sam’s voice droned on she couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Rickon. She had never had much of a liking for figures, herself, though she had picked up on heraldry easily enough. Each time she glanced up she saw Rickon fidgeting and Shaggydog pacing the room. Rickon had torn a leg from one of the roast chickens and was feeding pieces of it to the wolf, his fingers coated with grease.

“Rickon!” she called sharply when the boy attempted to wipe his fingers on his thighs. Her brother froze guiltily. “You’ll ruin your breeches. Use that rag there.”

The lesson went on. Sansa was just finishing her last letter when Sam dismissed Rickon and the boy raced from the room with Shaggydog on his heels. _Off to the practice yards, no doubt. Does he enjoy anything half as much as he enjoys riding and swordplay?_

She read over her work a final time before sealing the letters and handing them to Maester Sam. “It seems we will be hosting quite a number of great lords here in about a month’s time,” she said. “Would that we could begin sooner.”

“A month’s time, Your Grace? Yes, truly… But it might be all right, if it really is in a month’s time and it doesn’t take too long…” he looked apprehensive. “I’ll send these right away.”

“Is there something the matter, Maester?” Sansa asked, wondering at his expression.

“The matter? Not really, only, the timing…” He must have read the puzzlement written on her face. “With the babe, and all. But you’ve nearly two months to go, about. The council will be over by then, won’t it? If it’s to begin in a month?”

She felt momentarily faint. “I never considered that.” But now it was glaringly obvious. If the council started later, delayed by her bannermen’s travels, or if it dragged on, the babe might very well come before it was done. _Mother, please let it be done with before the child comes._ She remembered how it had been after Cat—the exhaustion, the aching, the sleepless nights. She couldn’t fathom sitting in endless council meetings so soon after going through that again.

Sam was watching her with concern. “But there’s no help for it, is there? Unless you want to delay until after?”

Sansa shook her head. “Each day we delay there could be another attack, more deaths. There have been four in as many weeks. I loathe to wait even a month.” She curled an arm around her belly. “I suppose I must take that chance. If I am incapacitated, Sandor will sit in my stead.” It was not a reassuring thought.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

Her bannermen made an interesting sight, seated on either side of the long table that had been moved to Sansa’s private solar to accommodate the gathering. The Greatjon was unusually subdued, staring balefully at his goblet of watered wine as though he wished it were stronger. Lady Eddara Tallhart sat stiffly beside him, her pretty face pinched. The grizzled heads of lords Norrey and Wull were bent together as they spoke, their voices so low Sansa could not make out their words. Lord and Lady Thenn sat side by side opposite Harrion Karstark, and it seemed to Sansa that Lady Alys was watching her brother with something verging on wariness. Fat Ser Wylis looked eager to begin, and Lady Maege Mormont looked fierce even without her ringmail and mace. Lord Glover, Lady Jonelle Cerwyn, Lord Hornwood, and lords Flint, Harclay, and Liddle of the mountain clans filled the rest of the seats, leaving only the one at the head of the table unoccupied. Sansa’s seat.

She had taken in the atmosphere at a glance upon entering the room. The tension was palpable. _It is only to be expected,_ she told herself. They knew why they were gathered there. The attacks were no trifling matter, and she doubted that coming to an agreement about what was to be done would be, either.

She strode to the vacant chair and sat, aware of the eyes on her. It was a nerve-wracking thing to realize many of those gathered there had served her father when she was no more than a girl, and even her grandfather before him. She had taken care to look the part of their Queen today. She wore a gown of cloth-of-silver with snow-white sleeves, which she had ordered to be refitted particularly for the council, and on her brow was the simple bronze circlet of her office. Her attention to appearance was partly for the benefit of her bannermen, a reminder that she was their liege, and partly to reassure herself. She always felt more confident when she looked her best.

They were waiting. “My good lords and ladies,” Sansa began, “I would first thank you for the haste with which you traveled here.” Some of them had been her guests for almost a fortnight while they awaited the rest; others, like lords Wull and Norrey, had arrived only a day or two prior, and Lady Jonelle had not ridden in until the night before, as she had such a little way to travel.

“You all know why I have called this council,” Sansa went on. She nervously smoothed her gown against her belly, but her voice was steady. “It will be no easy thing to stop the attacks, but I hope together we will find a way to restore the peace. Lord Sigorn has brought some suggestions to me, and I am sure many of you have suggestions of your own—”

“You would have a wildling tell us how to deal with other wildlings?” Lord Flint interrupted. A few others slapped the table in agreement. Lord Sigorn stiffened.

“I intend to listen to all voices, that we might come to the best solution.”

“Listen to my voice, then,” said old Lord Norrey. His wrinkled fist was clenched. “Aye, listen and let’s begin this at last. I know a thing or two about wildlings, been dealing with them since I was hardly more than a babe, them swarming through the Gift at any opportunity, trying to steal our daughters and our valuables. Listen to me. There’ll never be an end to it, I tell you, short of building another Wall and marching the wildlings back behind it. They’re like sullen children, wanting to take anything that catches their fancy and having fine little temper tantrums if anything is denied them. That’s what these attacks are, temper tantrums. All the laws you can think of won’t stop them. They don’t mind any laws, nor any Queen. Never did, nor will they.”

“I’ll attest to that,” said Lord Wull. “Laws don’t matter to a lawless people.”

Sansa’s heart sank at the direction the council had already taken, but she managed to smile politely. “You speak from long experience, my lords, I know. It’s true that the free folk, and these attacks, are unorganized, and it may be difficult to find a solution, but we must try. I will not accept that the butchering of my smallfolk is inevitable. Lord Sigorn, as I mentioned, has some ideas about what we might do.”

“Well, let’s hear them, then,” said Harrion Karstark.

Heads turned as one toward the balding lord of House Thenn, who drew himself up and met their stares with one of his own. His accented speech came slowly, deliberately. “You lords spent all your lives fighting free folk. You know how to fight us. You don’t know how to make a peace. I know. You say the free folk don’t know laws. You know nothing. We followed Mance. The Thenns followed my father, then they followed me. Magnar of Thenn. Free folk follow strength, and fairness. The Queen would be fair to them, I think. They would follow her, but for you and your men.”

His blunt words were making the others bristle, and Sansa could hardly blame them for taking offense. _It sounds like he is accusing them of wrongdoing, not offering help._

Surely enough, the Greatjon rumbled, “I didn’t ride south with the Young Wolf and drive off a horde of Others to be insulted by a damned upjumped wildling.” His face was very red. “We’ve been fair enough to the wildlings, I’d reckon. But they live on our lands, they’re subject to our justice. You’d have us do nothing as the wildlings kill our smallfolk, is that it? Strength and fairness means something different to me, must be.”

“And your smallfolk, they are subject to the same justice?” Lord Sigorn had half risen from his chair. His wife tugged on his sleeve and he seated himself again, face stony. “Are the free folk living on your lands not your people also? Where was your justice when they hunted down a man of the free folk for stealing a bride?”

“We don’t tolerate those barbaric customs here.” The Greatjon drained his goblet and beckoned to the serving boy to refill it.

“The girl went willingly,” said Lady Alys. “She told her father as much, and they killed the boy anyway. I know none of you are so blind as not to see how the free folk are mistreated at your hands, unless it is that you do not wish to see. None of these attacks were unprovoked. There need be justice for all if the bloodshed is to end.”

“I’ve no need to be taught lessons by a mere child,” Lord Wull broke in. The older lords in attendance murmured in agreement.

Maege Mormont spoke up. “We have all agreed to hear every voice, have we not? Pray have the courtesy to hold your tongues until Lady Alys has finished.”

“And how many wildlings do you have living on Bear Island, my lady? Seems to me those who’ve real experience dealing with the wildlings should talk. Listening to this rot is a waste of the council’s time.”

“The lord and lady Thenn make good points, if you are not too proud to hear them, my lord.”

Lady Maege’s comment released a volley of rejoinders at once.

“I didn’t ride south with the Young Wolf to be accused—”

“You’re not the only one who rode with the Young Wolf, Greatjon Umber—”

“I’d have brought my wife along if I knew she’d be given equal place at this council. She can talk up a lot of nonsense too, when she’s a mind to.”

“The only solution’s to build another Wall, I tell you. Let them run wild in their frozen wasteland where they belong.”

“Speaking of nonsense! You know full well there’s not a man alive knows how to rebuild the Wall, or do you fancy yourself Bran the Builder reborn?”

“Enough,” Sansa said. At the icy sound of her voice the argument broke off. Sansa laid her eyes on each of her bannermen in turn. Some shrank from her gaze, others stared back challengingly, but at least they were good enough to stop their bickering. _It is they who are acting like children, whining and stomping their feet like Arya used to when we were girls and she didn’t want to practice her needlework._ She tried to think how her father would have dealt with this. _Would they ever have dared to behave before him as they did just now?_ No, she mustn’t think that, mustn’t let doubts weaken her. They had made her their Queen, and Queen she would remain until Rickon came of age. They would listen. “Remember yourselves,” she said, biting back the _please_ that rose to her lips automatically. “This talk is neither seemly nor productive. You will all be heard in turn. I know you for honorable and loyal bannermen. I know your concern for your people. I know your worth, and I will hear you, but I demand you have the courtesy to listen to the others here as well. Will you do so?”

No one spoke for a long moment. “Well,” said the Greatjon, “bugger me if I don’t feel like I’ve been set on by a bloody direwolf again. Only this time instead of a finger I’ve lost a bit of my pride. You hear your Queen?” he all but roared at the rest. “We’re all better than this or I’ll be damned. I’ll listen, and when it’s my chance to talk you can be sure I’ll talk. But I’ll listen, you’ve got my bloody word.”

“And mine,” said Lord Hornwood, and then there was a chorus of chagrined agreement.

Sansa allowed herself a small, relieved smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Shall we continue? Lord Sigorn, you have not yet told the council how you would stop the attacks.”

Lady Tallhart sniffed.

“Wed the free folk to the North,” Lord Sigorn said with a smile at his wife. “Make laws to protect them. You punish the free folk for stealing and killing. Punish your own smallfolk when they do the same to the free folk. Offer lands and lordships to loyal men.”

“Lands?” sputtered Lord Flint at the same time as Lady Jonelle repeated, “Lordships?”

Sansa shot them warning glances, but she could not truly blame them for their outburst. The rest of her bannermen looked equally startled and outraged, and she remembered her own surprise when Lord Sigorn had first brought this suggestion to her the week prior.

“Pardons, Your Grace,” said Harrion Karstark, “but he would have us reward the wildlings by making them lords? After all their atrocities?”

“I would beg you to remember, Harry, my lords, that the free folk fought with us when the Wall fell and the Others came. Men have been given greater rewards for far less.” Lady Alys spoke lightly, but her smile was tight.

“The war is years past now,” said Lord Flint.

“Does that make their deeds less noble?” Lady Alys asked. “My lord husband does not seek to reward the free folk for their misdeeds, but for their valor. He believes that with their own lords raised up from among them, the free folk will have less cause to attack the smallfolk. They will have sympathetic lords to whom they may bring their complaints, lords they know and respect. It will not end all fighting, but it could very well end these senseless conflicts we’ve all heard far too much of.”

One by one the others added their voices. Lord Norrey maintained that, wildling lords or no, they would never keep the peace. Lord Glover questioned whether any wildlings would even accept lordships. “They call us kneelers, you know,” he said. The Greatjon held that the only way to keep the wildlings in line was to stomp down firmly on any who threatened the smallfolk, and the lords of the mountain clans told tale after tale of wildling raids. It often seemed to Sansa that they talked in circles, never coming any closer to agreeing on anything. The hostility between certain of her bannermen remained just under the surface, though by intervening every so often Sansa was able to prevent it from erupting into outright quarrelling a second time.

The midday meal was served to them in Sansa’s solar, and by the time they ended the day’s meeting after dusk Sansa’s head was pounding. She wondered if they would ever reach a resolution. It would be easier if she simply ordered them to carry out her will, but would they? No, she needed their respect, their cooperation. When they returned to their lands it would be up to her bannermen to carry out whatever decisions were made, and after all, who was to say one of them might not yet come up with a better solution than any they had yet heard? _This was only the first day,_ she reminded herself, climbing the stairs to her bedchamber. She wasn’t sure if she found the thought encouraging or not.

The baby kicked, hard enough to make her gasp and clutch herself. “Not now, little one,” she murmured. “You must wait a little while longer. Please.”

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

The second and third days blended together in Sansa’s mind, as did many of the arguments she heard over and over again. Some of her lords and ladies seemed to be coming around to some of Lord Sigorn’s ideas, though most remained staunchly opposed to granting lordships to the free folk.

Sansa had not known where Lady Eddara stood at first. The woman was even younger than she, and observed the proceedings with a hard mouth and quick eyes that missed as little as they gave away. On the fourth day, however, she broke her silence.

“I like the idea of granting lordships to wildlings no more than anyone here, but if it might stop the fighting why should we not try?” she said. “They would be minor lords, all of them, answerable to us and to the Queen, their status dependent upon their loyalty. The North does not want another war, least of all one against such an unorganized bunch as the wildlings. They live among us now, throughout the North, and where one leader fell another would be sure to rise in his place. Such a war would be never-ending. If we might prevent such an outcome with some petty lordships and a few new laws in their favor, I am willing to try.”

Even the most stubborn among them were not entirely unswayed. “Laws,” the Norrey had grumbled. “Like as not they won’t change a thing, but I guess I don’t see them doing any harm.”

And on the fourth day Sansa began to feel contractions. _No, no, not yet,_ she pleaded silently as Lord Glover droned on and on. The council might still last for days, and halting it now might undo much of the progress they had made.

But she did make the concession of calling for a break in the middle of the day and visiting Maester Sam. “As long as they’re infrequent and not too strong, and you feel fine, I shouldn’t worry,” he told her. “They don’t necessarily mean the babe is coming right away. They might even last weeks.”

Reassured, Sansa had taken her leave of him, but as she had a while yet before the council rejoined she took the opportunity to seek out Sandor. She had hardly seen him in days, consumed as she was with the council. She had been so tired at the end of each day that she had fallen asleep long before he returned to their rooms.

A servant told her that Lord Clegane was in the practice yard, and there she found him. He was not practicing himself, but watching from the sidelines as Rickon sparred with an older boy. Catelyn was sitting astride his shoulders, giggling happily at the height, his hands holding her secure. Sandor smiled and pointed when Sansa drew near, and Cat held out her arms.

“Is the council over, then?” he asked.

“Would that it were. I called a break.” She kissed Cat’s soft palm and lowered her voice so she would not be overheard. “I’ve spent far too much time with my bannermen of late, and too little with you.” She raised her hands to her temples and sighed.

“Pity the only time you can find for me we have to be out in the yard,” he said, and then, more seriously, “Do you feel all right, little bird?”

“Yes,” she said, “just tired, and my head aches. Sometimes I feel it’s all I can do to keep them from one another’s throats, and I’m afraid they’ll never agree on anything. Please, for an hour at least I don’t want to think about the council. Talk to me of something else. How is Rickon faring?”

Her brother had just finished his bout. His tunic was stained with sweat despite the chill air, but he was grinning widely as he left the yard with the older boy.

“He’ll make a great swordsman someday if he keeps practicing. He fights fierce for a boy his age.”

Together they watched the next pair enter and face off. They were much younger, hardly more than babes to Sansa’s eyes, and wore so much padding they looked as rotund as Ser Wylis. Sansa recognized one as Alys Thenn’s son Symond, with her dark hair and a serious expression that seemed out of place on his young face. The children swatted at each other clumsily, and when Symond dropped his child-sized practice sword the other whooped and pointed his wooden blade at his chest. “Surrender, you wildling! I win!”

 “The boy’s heart isn’t in it,” Sandor said. “Probably wishes he was back home. Don’t know why they brought him in the first place. None of the others bothered to haul along their whelps.”

Sansa smothered a smile. “Isn’t it obvious?” Sandor showed no signs of understanding. “Lady Alys and Lord Sigorn hope we will betroth Cat to him, I think,” she explained.

Horror wrote itself across Sandor’s face, and his grip on their daughter’s legs tightened. “You bloody highborns,” he breathed. Sansa frowned at his use of such language in Cat’s presence. “It’s half a year before she’ll even see her third nameday! Have the bastards actually mentioned a betrothal?”

“No, of course not! That’s not how it’s done. Oh, Sandor.” She laughed. “Surely you don’t think I would consent to a betrothal at this age? Cat hasn’t any idea what that is yet. No, they’ll not mention it outright, not for years, but their intention is obvious. Why else bring him on such a trip, as you asked? They want us to see him, to grow fond of him.”

“Bloody highborns,” Sandor said again. “Tell them to bugger off with their schemes.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Sansa said. “Look at me, Sandor. I’m telling you, I’ll not consent to a betrothal, but it’s no good turning away potential offers. Symond would be a good match, and Cat _will_ be of an age to marry someday.”

Sandor shook his head, the motion making the girl squeal, her hands bound up in his hair. The look he sent toward the poor boy smothered in padding was filled with such an unwarranted resentment that Sansa felt sorry for the child. He likely had no more idea of his parents’ hopes than Cat did.

Abruptly he turned away. “Are you hungry, Cat?” he asked, swinging the girl from his shoulders to place her on the ground. “Time for the midday meal, hmm? Maybe your mother will come with us, if you ask her.”

“Eat, eat!” Cat chanted, turning her deep blue eyes up at Sansa.

“All right,” she laughed, “but I mustn’t stay long. The council is to begin again in another hour.”

The autumn day was lovely, and Sansa knew once she returned inside she would see no more of it, so she ordered a passing chambermaid to have the meal brought to them at the edge of the godswood. It was quickly done, and Sandor spread his cloak over the ground so she would not dirty her gown. In the shadow cast by the trees Sansa felt almost cold, moving closer to Sandor to benefit from the warmth that poured from his body. Cat snatched a fruit tart and shoved half of it into her mouth at once, and while Sandor laughed indulgently Sansa sighed and chided her gently.

Sansa was enjoying the simple nearness of her husband and child, the respite from the debating and the arguing, when another contraction rippled through her.

“Sandor. We must choose a name for the baby, if it’s a girl.”

“Now, little bird?”

“Yes. Before I return to the council.”

“You’re not—?” He glanced from her face to her belly.

“Maester Sam said it could yet be weeks,” she said, “but, please. What do you think of calling a girl Myranda?” she suggested. “She would mock me dreadfully, of course, but really she would be pleased.”

Sandor grimaced. “I don’t think the babe will look like a Myranda.”

“You can’t be sure,” Sansa said. “You haven’t seen the babe.”

“I’ve seen you. They’ll all look like you, like Cat, or gods help them.”

Hearing her name, Cat crawled into his lap and grinned at him. _How can he not see it?_ she wondered, not for the first time. _How she resembles him?_ Sandor made a face at the girl, causing her to laugh, and when he pulled another she laughed all the harder.

Sansa let her latest suggestion go. Much as she loved her friend, Myranda hadn’t quite seemed to fit either, no more than any of the other names they had talked of. _I must bring it up now,_ she realized. _I cannot wait any longer. What if it happens tonight?_

She raised a hand to his scarred cheek, and Sandor left off his game with Cat to meet her eyes. “Not Myranda, then,” she said, “but… I would have mentioned it before, only I thought it might upset you, after what you’ve told me.” Sandor’s mouth tightened as if he knew what she was about to say. Sansa pressed on. “But please, would you consider it? Naming her after your—”

“Don’t say it,” Sandor said. “Not now.”

Sansa’s heart sank. “Oh. I only thought it would be nice, but if you don’t like it…”

Sandor looked away. “It’s not that. Can’t we wait until the babe is here to name it? It might be a boy, anyway.”

“All right,” Sansa said, dropping her eyes and pushing her plate away. She felt as though she’d done something wrong, but she did not know what. “I have to go back.”

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

On the fifth day of the council her bannermen began to come together. Though Sansa was still plagued by infrequent contractions, she felt triumphant when Lord Norrey had bowed his white head and declared that he would do his part to carry out the council’s will, though he remained skeptical. “If Lord Sigorn is right and this makes an end of it, all to the good. If it doesn’t, I expect we’ll go back to the old ways of dealing with the wildlings. But we’ll try it your way. I’m yours to command, Your Grace,” he had said. Sansa knew him for a man of his word.

Soon after the Norrey spoke, the rest who had held out against Lord Sigorn’s plans gave in. _I have their support,_ she thought, flushed with her victory. _Not exactly enthusiastic support, but it will do. It will have to._ When she raised her cup of cider and gave a toast to peace and the North, her bannermen joined in heartily.

The Norrey’s speech marked the turning point, and it surprised Sansa how quickly they finished all the rest of their business once they were in agreement. They broke early on the sixth day after drafting the new laws, long before dusk. Sansa had already compiled a lengthy list of notable free folk who might be worthy of lordship, mostly those who had distinguished themselves years ago in the War, and each of her lords and ladies had promised to bring her additional names, their own recommendations. She knew some of them were still rankled by the idea, but she hoped helping to hand-select those she would raise up would soothe them somewhat.

Come that evening they had a feast to celebrate the council’s closing. It was more hastily put together than Sansa would have liked, but her bannermen drank deeply and laughed loudly, and for the first time since they had convened they seemed free of the draining tension that had filled her solar.

Sansa would have quite enjoyed herself if not for the waves of pain that crashed over her, far more insistent than any she had felt before. Sandor happened to glance from the Greatjon to her at just the wrong moment, as she was fighting to ignore an especially strong one.

“Is it the child, little bird?” he whispered urgently. His lips tickled her ear.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “When the feast is over I’ll find the maester.”

“Bugger that,” he hissed. “Is it coming? Now?” She couldn’t deny it. After Cat she recognized the signs. “Bugger the feast. It’s all but over anyway.”

He stood and pulled her gently to her feet. She nodded at those in the Great Hall who were not too drunk to notice her leaving, and made sure to walk slowly with her head held high. A few of his clipped words sent a pair of terrified handmaidens on the way to fetch the maester and the midwife.

Her labor passed in a blur, as it had the time before. She was most aware of Sandor, who once again insisted upon staying with her. The time that passed meant nothing, until at last a pink squalling babe was placed in her arms.

The babe cried with a strength that made the midwife chuckle even as she prepared for the afterbirth. “Good set of lungs she has, Your Grace, like a right bellows.”

 _She_. A girl. She was beautiful, perfect, just like Cat. Sandor pressed his uneven lips against Sansa’s sweaty forehead. The girl had his eyes.

She still needed a name. The longer Sansa gazed into those eyes the more certain she was that there was only one that could ever suit her, but Sandor had said… He hadn’t said anything, truly, she realized. He hadn’t refused the name, he’d only said he wanted to wait until the child had been born.

Sansa lifted her eyes from the babe’s to the mirror image of Sandor’s as it made sense at last. She berated herself for not understanding sooner, for being too concerned about ruling the North to connect his concern for her, the anxiety that showed on his face at her smallest complaint, to what he had told her. It wasn’t only that his sister had died as a child. His mother had died after her birth. _Of course he would not want to give her that name until after. If at all. But will he always fear the same? Each time I’m to give him another child, will he fear the child will instead take me from him?_ The thought that he likely would made a few tears leak from her eyes.

“What is it? What’s wrong, Sansa?”

“Nothing is wrong, Sandor,” she said. “I’m all right. We’ve another daughter. Are you _sure_ she doesn’t look like a Myranda?” she tried to joke.

“Not funny,” he said through an exaggerated scowl.

“What about an Elynor?” she asked softly, the words almost drowned out by the child’s steady cry.

Her lord husband was very still. Sansa hardly dared breathe. He looked to the maester, then to the midwife, taking in their satisfied, weary expressions. At last he nodded. “Elynor,” he said, returning his gaze to the child in her arms.

“It’s a beautiful name,” Sansa said. “Elynor,” she crooned, holding her close as her cries lessened. “My sweet Ely.”

“She’s strong,” Sandor murmured, as if to himself. “I won’t let any harm come to her.”     

“You’ll keep her safe,” Sansa agreed.

“And you.”

Sansa smiled. “You always have. Maester, would you send Catelyn and Mae to us?”

“Right away, Your Grace.”                                          

It was the hour before dawn and the castle was waking. Sansa saw no more than a lightening greyness from her window, but she knew the routine. Candles would soon be winking from behind windows in rooms where servants were dressing and stoking fires. Grooms would be trudging, yawning, through the yard to tend to the horses, and the night shift guards would be waiting impatiently for their relief. In the kitchens the day’s bread was already browning in the ovens. And soon many of her lords would be preparing to leave, to return to their lands with word of her new laws. They would be sending ravens to their vassals and messengers to the villages of smallfolk and free folk alike. _Will it be enough?_ The disquieting thought intruded upon her happiness. _Will there be peace now? A true peace?_

“Something’s bothering you,” Sandor said.

Elynor had nursed and drifted into a slumber. Sansa kept her voice low. “It’s only that I’m afraid I haven’t done enough,” she said. “To stop the attacks. What if the others were right, and the only solution is to try to banish them from the North? But how? I’m sorry, Sandor, I know I shouldn’t be thinking of this now… Only, I worry as well that something else will go wrong. It often seems there’s no end to the trouble. As soon as I fix one thing, there’s another to attend to.” It made her feel tired, so tired.

“No, little bird, it never ends,” Sandor said. “That’s part of being Queen in the North. You’ll have to deal with Northern lords and Northern problems until Rickon’s of an age to do it himself. But listen, little bird—”

He was interrupted by the opening of the heavy door. Mae entered, clutching a toddling Catelyn by the hand. Cat’s head barely reached the top of the mattress when she drew up beside the bed. She squealed when Sandor lifted her to see. Being picked up by her father was one of her favorite things.

The noise was enough to wake Elynor. She screwed up her face, and there was an instant of silence before the wail burst from her throat, louder than should be possible for such a tiny thing.

“Catelyn, this is your sister,” Sansa said above the cries as she tried to comfort the newborn. “Her name is Elynor.”

Cat clamped her hands over her ears. “She’s _loud_ ,” she complained.

“You’ll have your hands full with the two of them,” Sandor said wryly to the wet nurse.

Sansa thought she saw a trace of amusement on Mae’s face as the woman surveyed the scene. “Aye, milord,” she said. “And so will you.”

When Sandor responded he looked not at the wet nurse, but at Sansa. His dark eyes held her, and it seemed to her as if his words were a continuation of what he had been about to say earlier. “We’ll manage, teach them how to behave proper. If there’s anyone able to do it, it’s Sansa.”


End file.
